RELIGION

Religion is mostly linked with others areas of social life, such as politics ans education. How do people's beliefs about the supernatural and the divine affect their actions in the world? What kind of belief which are motivated by and derived from religion should influence action taken by official and agencies.

A. Religion in current events

It is now common to say that religion plays an important role in public and political life in The United States. It can be said as true, but some elements disagree this statement. A large majority reports that they attend religious services regularly and that it plays an important role in their everyday life.

1) Presidential Elections 2000 & 2004

After the announcement of the results of the Presidential elections in 2000, and more in 2004, the media insisted on the support from the religious right, Evangelicals or Christians, who had played a role in the election of George W. Bush. One of them even claimed that all progress from the Enlightenment was dropped out. Such a position is quite exaggerated, as far as the choice of the voters seems to have been encourages by moral values, learning from the errors from the past. The link between politics and religion has grown less clear throughout the years.

2) Flag Salute Case & Religious Displays in Public Places

The founding of The United States was mainly made thanks to religion and its convictions, and t is still the case nowadays. From now on, there is a public discussion about how that religious element in the U.S History can find its place in contemporary practices. This debate is often cast with extreme positions which usually occupy the headlines of newspaper. However, even if the number of believers is higher than the number of unbelievers, the Courts have a more secular interpretation of the Constitution for recent decades. a) The Pledge of Allegiance Case For generations, public meetings and school days in elementary and secondary schools have opened with the Pledge of Allegiance (or also called Flag Salute) 1. It was written at the end of the 19th century when people were concerned about immigration from countries in which democracy wasn't rooted. They feared it might be a threat to the American Population, whose patriotic feeling was very important based on common ideals and ideology more than on religious or linguistic elements. The flag salute was on of a number of components that would lead immigrants to fully participate in U.S society and political life by adopting its values. In the 1930s, the Pledge was given an official status and, during the Cold War, the words under God were added, to mark the difference between The United States and communist nations of the Soviet Bloc. Before that, it wasn't compulsory to recite the Pledge in schools because this was contrary to some religious practices. Nevertheless, it is unusual not to hear the Pledge in public meetings and refusing to participate is often seen as a political protest. b) The Newdow Case and the Roy Moore Case 1 According to the official way of participating, individuals stand, face the flag (which is a nearly universal feature of classrooms, as
well as many other public places), place their right hands over their hearts, and recite the following text: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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Michael Newdow, Doctor from California, recently brought a suit in federal court to contest the constitutionality of the Pledge, saying that the words under God are a violation of the separation of Church and State claimed by the First Amendment. It holds that the Pledge should be as neutral as possible as far as religion is concerned, without any allusion to God, and that children should not have to recite it with these kind of allusions. For now, the case has not been judged. Yet, it is just a matter of time so that this case comes to the attention of the court again. This case shows how religious symbols are used in public places. For years, it was common to put up Christmas decorations, crosses and crches in town halls or post offices. However, during the 1980s, cases came to the attention of the Supreme Court, concluding that religious symbols were acceptable if there were others symbols. It was known as the reindeer rule: Religious symbols are authorized if the same displays includes Santa Claus and his reindeer.

3) Terri Schiavo
During 2005, and for several months, a debate raged to know if Terri Schiavo's husband should be allowed to decide as to whether or not continue artificial life support for his wife, who had been in a vegetative state because of brain damage after an accident. Those opposed invoked religious convictions associated with the right to life(used by the opponents of legal abortion). Their idea is that a human being has the right to life since the moment of conception. Political figures at every level of government took positions on the issue, invariably on party lines.

4) Abortion and Reproductive Rights

This is possibly the most controversial issue in U.S society these days, opposing those who the right to life and those who support the right to choose. Right to lifers says that a person's life begin as soon as there is the conception and that ending a pregnancy is seen as a murder. Most often, they think abortion is acceptable when the life of the mother is endangered by her expecting a baby, or in cases of rape or incest. However, in the state of South Dakota, abortion is illegal in all cases except if the mother's life is threatened. Furthermore, one frequently used argument is that the Bible prohibits it. For the defenders of the right to choose, a woman should have the control of her body and therefore can decide if she wants to keep her baby or not. The main argument is that even a parent cannot be forced to donate an organ to a child who might need one to be saved, and so that a woman should be the only decider of what to do if she is pregnant. It is unjustifiable to force a woman to keep a baby if this is lethal for her. So in 1973, during the Roe vs Wade decision, the Supreme Court decided that the states and the federal government cannot prohibit access to abortion in the first three months of a pregnancy. Many states have adopted restrictions on it. The law in South Dakota is seen as a way to provoke a new ruling on this topic. support

5) Same-Sex Marriage & Gay Ecclesiastic Officials

Another important issue is homosexuals marriage. Should it be limited only to people from different sexes, or two men/women should be allowed to marry? Opponents refer to the Bible prohibition as the source of their disapproval. Some states forbid same-sex marriage whereas the state of Massachusetts holds that forbidding it is a form of unconstitutional discrimination. The choice for bishop of a man who is homosexual created a controversy in the Episcopal Church in one of the New England states. Anglicans in other countries (England and African countries mostly) are strongly opposed to it. Yet, the bishop remained in office.

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B. Religion in studies 1) Definition

According to William James, religion can be defined as follows : ... the belief there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.2 In other words, the study of the religion deals also with individual and collective beliefs according to relations with the invisible world, its inhabitants who may have powers, or their influence over the inhabitants of the real world of everyday life. This means that individual has a clearly defined identity which is part of religion and part of a group.

2) Catherine Albanese's point of view

Catherine Albanese holds that major aspects of religion can be analysed in terms of boundaries that we have to cross. Yet it is not only the preserve of what we thought as religion. That's why she makes a difference between ordinary and extraordinary religion in order to understand what is religion in The United States. But sometimes, the limits between the two is blurred a) Ordinary religion She views religion as having to do with borders and limits between the natural and visible world, and the supernatural and invisible world. This ordinary religion has rules of behaviour about how to live within this world or a given community. This includes moral values and virtues like punctuality, courage, temperance, honesty and morality which leads to riches and most of all the favour of God. b) Extraordinary religion Extraordinary religion deals with the aspects of life which have relations with the other world, not within the everyday life. It is a way of crossing the border between the two world, as if we go to heaven, or hell for instance.

C. Oneness & Manyness 1) Oneness

a) Public Protestantism Protestantism (but in reality, this is only a variety of them called Calvinists) has been a dominant form of Christianity in The United States since the early colonial period. Its values had provided moral and social rules of everyday life. This is called Public Protestantism. This superiority was reinforced by the opening of schools and colleges since the 17th century. Their interpretation of the Bible was used in primers as one of the first book children had to read. And even the First. The precepts of Protestantism ware applied in schools especially the one that says that individuals has a direct contact with God through this sacred book.

b) The Book Of Revelations 2 James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. 1902.
This book is regarded as one of the major philosophical discussions of religion Semester 4 : Civilisation US : Education & Religion

This is the last book of the Bible and its interpretation is on of the major theological debate in this religion. There are in it prophesies about the end of the world, or the Apocalypse, which will be preceded by 100 years of Christ's rule for those who have accepted him. Dome believers called Pre-millennialists expect Christ to come before the millennium whereas their opponents called the Post-millennialists thinks that the Christ will come after. Events in the world have therefore different interpretation according to the believers even if they share the same expectations that the end of the world is coming, which will be followed by a new order. Christian groups put various degree on the importance of all this, but, in a way or the other, millennialism is a factor of unity, providing a link between different groups as Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.

2) Manyness
Before European Colonization, Native Americans had contributed to religious pluralism. Yet, since the arrival of Europeans, there were in The United States at least the three historically linked religions: Catholicism, Protestantism and Jewish. Furthermore, Protestantism is itself a source of evolution, because new religions came up in The United States, creating a new multiplicity. Other factors like racial segregation and industrialization also generated manyness.

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D. Protestantism
Protestantism is regarded as one of the three major branches of Christianity (the other two are Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy (often called Orthodox Catholicism to avoid the confusion with orthodoxy which means conformity with an established doctrine)3

1) Beginning of a new religion

There were many episodes where dissidents have attempted to reform the Church to turn it into a purer state. For instance the 13th century Cathars in Southern France: They adopted theological doctrines that differed from those of the established Church. They thought their beliefs were more in adequacy with the teachings of the early church. Protestantism is known to have begun in a similar way, with a protest against the Church by a Catholic monk, Martin Luther4. He believed that the sale of indulgences was a corruption within the Church and so called upon ecclesiastical authorities in 1517 to debate about it. Hence, he was the leader of not only a debate within the Church but also of a major schism that the established Church wasn't able to contain like they did with the Cathars by killing them. As a consequence, new Christian groups began to appear and shared a doctrinal characteristic : not to recognise the authority of the Pope.

2) No recognistion of the Pope authority anymore

a) A number of groups During the 16th century, a number of new groups appeared and were followers of John Calvin (Geneva 1536) or John Knox (Scotland 1545) for instance. They didn't accept the Pope or any similar authority. Hence, a variety of churches developed, as legitimate as the others and when there were theological disagreement within a group, it was usual to see this group splitting up into two groups, each with a new doctrinal identity. However, they all based their religion on the interpretation of the Old and New Testament of the Bible. b) Reasons for the break with the Pope Nevertheless, others reasons motivated a break with the Pope. Henry VIII of England, who was unable to produce a male heir, divorced his first wife, married another ans was excommunicated. Parliament in Great-Britain at that time insulate the ecclesiastical hierarchy in England from the Pope's authority. From this results the creation of the Church of England, with a similar hierarchy to the Roman Catholic Church, but with the King as the head of Church AND state. The civil authorities were quick to react, for instance with dissenters within the Church of England, who were considered as a threat for religion but also for civil order. They were prosecuted and that's why the Pilgrims Fathers left England to go to The America in the 17th century. They first went to Holland to negotiate a treaty with British authorities allowing them to est ablish in the colony of the New World. There they will find protection and be allowed to practice their religion without fearing the government's reaction. The Pilgrims Fathers then went to Boston in November 1620 to establish a colony, on board of the Mayflower.

3) Intelligent Design
3 There are also other Christian groups, but they will not be dealt with here. 4 Students will have noticed that the US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was named after Martin Luther. Indeed wished to honour the person whose actions were at the origin of the Protestantism in which they so firmly believed (King's father was himself a Baptist minister) Semester 4 : Civilisation US : Education & Religion

Protestantism is a major forces in the American social, economic and political history, since the settlement by the Mayflower colonists in 1620 until the development in Pennsylvania and Kansas in 2005. The debate over the separation of church and state (guaranteed by the 1 st Amendment) has centred on intelligent design : life on earth is too complex to have evolved by chance. Some intelligent force must have guided the process of evolution. a) Defender's opinion The defenders of intelligent design don't deny that evolution has taken place but they believe that Darwin's theory of unplanned mutation isn't sufficient to explain how human being could have developed. They only could have been the result of an evolution guided by an intelligent design. It is presented as a rival theory which should be learn in biology classes as a scientific explanation of our existence. b) Reasons The opponents to intelligent design insists on the use of the word theory and denies that Darwin's theory is just a fact. Most people use the word theory to refer to unproven suppositions about events. For scientists, it refers to an explanation subjects to testing and which might be accepted by the scientific community. This is the case for Darwin's, whose outlines aren't doubted. Furthermore, they claim that the intelligent design must have guided evolution as divine. By doing so, they avoid accusations of introducing theological considerations into the civil world.

E. Creationism : The Scopes Monkey Trial

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the debate over religion has taken various forms. One of them focuses on the origins of the Earth, and especially to human life. They were called creationists, who claimed that the origins of the Universe and of human life was due to the Genesis, which is the First Book of the Old Testament. Creationism was the main subject of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which happened in Tennessee in 1925, when teaching the theory of evolution was prohibited in favor of a religious explanation of the origin of life by the Genesis.

1) The context
In the early 1920s Traditionalists worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked if their behaviour would be approved, but only if it fits their intellect. American culture developed: Jazz Age, Alcoholic Prohibition, debate over abstract Art and Freudian theories... A wave of modernism developed, especially strong in the South of The United States. William Jennings Bryan, Democratic candidate for presidency, led a fundamentalist crusade to banish Darwin's theory of evolution from schools. We don't know why he did so, but there are many theory about it. Yet, it is said that he was concerned about the undermining of traditional values if this theory was learnt, but also because it allowed him to stay on the public spotlights he had occupied since the Cross of Gold Speech in 1896. Bryan was therefore called a sort of fundamentalist Pope. The question was to know who between the modernists or the traditionalist would dominate this new form of culture. As a response, there were a showdown in Dayton, Tennessee where a jury had to decide the fate of John Scopes, a school biology teacher who had taught the theory of evolution during his classes. This trial was a symbol of a conflict of social and intellectual values.

2) The origins
It all began in a drug-store in Dayton: George Rappalyea, a local coal company manager,
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arrived at the store with a paper containing an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announcement that it offers its services to anyone who would challenge the Tennessee anti-evolution statute. This man, a modernist with contempt for the new law said that a trial would put Dayton on the map again. The others were convinced that this would help their town, whose population had decreased. Scopes, a general science teacher, was summoned by Rappalyea, who claims that biology cannot be taught without talking about the theory of evolution. Scopes agreed and show a book to all the people present where the theory was explained. Rappalyea then said that he was doing something illegal and ask him if he wanted to be part of a trial: Scopes said yes.

3) The event
a) Before the trial John Neal, a law school dean from Knoxville, represented Scopes. William Jennings Bryan decided to join the prosecution team, and therefore, Clarence Darrow jumped to join the trial in Dayton. Yet, ACLU feared that Darrow would only put an attack only based on religion. Arthur Garfield Hays joined the defence team, with Dudley Field Malone, an international divorce attorney. However, today, we only remember Darrow and Bryan to be the key adversaries in the trial. b) The trial For the 1st day of trial, there were nearly a thousand people in the Courthouse on July 10, 1925, but also the fist live radio broadcast from a trial, announces by a Conservative Christian Judge Raulston. The jury was composed of 12 men among whom 10 farmers and 11 Church-goers. The first part of the trial : The defence wanted not to win acquittal for Scopes, but to obtain a declaration by the U.S Supreme Court that laws forbidding the teaching of the theory of evolution weren't constitutional. Darrow claimed that Bryan was responsible for the foolish, mischievous and wicked act and that the anti-evolution law made the Bible the reference to measure every man's intelligence. The prosecution asked the court to take notice of the Book of Genesis, according to King James Version. Then, it gave the list of witnesses that had heard Scopes admit he taught evolution to his classes: this was proved by the testimony of seven of his students. The second part of the trial : The first witness is called by the defence, Dr Metclaf who gave his own testimony about the theory of evolution. Darrow said he couldn't understand why every suggestions made by the prosecution were more important and coherent. Then, the lawn was transferred outside where a sign reading Read the Bible was hung. Thanks to Darrow's effort, the trial had become a national biology lesson. The last part of the trial : Bryan was called to the stand as an expert on the Bible to be questioned by Darrow about his study on the Book and his interpretations. After all this, Bryan finally said that words in the Bible should not always be taken literally. Yet, their speech became angrier and Raulston had to adjourned the trial. The next day, Raulston claimed that Bryan's testimony should be kept as an evidence. This confrontation became famous : As a man and as a legend, Bryan was destroyed by his testimony that day. The verdict : Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty so that the case might be appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. c) The aftermaths A year later, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the decision because the fine should have
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been set by the jury and not by Raulston: the case was dismissed. The trial didn't end the debate over the teaching of evolution but it was a setback for the antievolution forces. Of the 15 states with this law, only 2 enacted laws restricting teaching of Darwin's theory. The Supreme Court ruled that creationism cannot be taught in science classes, but the theory of evolution (and its successors) had suffered of denial in other ways, such as intelligence design. Creationism was the belief that humans, life, the Earth and the universe were created by a supreme being: it may be seen as an act of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) or from pre-existing chaos.

F. Current Events: Dover, Pennsylvania and Kansas 1) Dover Pennsylvania

The school board of Dover decided that the theory of evolution was required to refer to its defects by biology teacher who were forced to tell their students about other theories, including Intelligent Design. Yet, in 2005, a federal judge claimed that the Dover School board's decision was unconstitutional because it imposed religion in classrooms.

2) Kansas
The school board of education in Kansas decided to remove the natural causes from the definition of sciences, so that it includes all kind of causes, including supernatural. This was in favour of Intelligent Design and creationism.

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